Riza Abbasi, Riza yi-Abbasi or Reza-e Abbasi, رضا عباسی in Persian, usually "Riza" or Reza Abbasi also Aqa Riza (but see below) or Āqā Riżā Kāshānī (c. 1565–1635) was the leading Persian miniaturist of the Isfahan School during the later Safavid period, spending most of his career working for Shah Abbas I. He is considered to be the last great master of the Persian miniature, best known for his single miniatures for muraqqa or albums, especially single figures of beautiful youths.
Reza was possibly born in Kashan, where his father, the miniature artist Ali Asghar, is recorded as having worked in the atelier of the governor, Prince Ibrahim Mirza.
Unlike most earlier Persian artists, he typically signed his work, often giving dates and other details as well, though there are many pieces with signatures that scholars now reject. He may have worked on the ambitious, but incomplete Shahnameh, now in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin. A much later copy of the work, from 1628, at the end of Abbas' reign and rendered in a very different style, may also be his. It is now in the British Library (MS Additional 27258). His first dated drawing is from 1601, in the Topkapi Palace. A book miniature of 1601-2 in the National Library of Russia has been attributed to him; the only other miniature in the book is probably by his father. He is generally attributed with the 19 miniatures in a Khusraw and Shirin of 1631-32, although their quality has been criticised.
Sheila Canby's 1996 monograph accepts 128 miniatures and drawings as by Riza, or probably so, and lists as "Rejected" or "Uncertain Attributions" a further 109 that have been ascribed to him at some point. Today, his works can be found in Tehran in the Reza Abbasi Museum and in the library at the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. They can also be found in several western museums, such as the Smithsonian, where the Freer Gallery of Art has an album of works by him and pupils,the British Museum, Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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